Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Quote from: Sean on February 01, 2009, 12:08:42 AM

Off-Topic: You need a good signature.  Maybe a link to your favorite quotes?

Thanks for the suggestion.  I was actually just thinking about this lately.  The best thing I could come up so far was finding out how to say the following in latin:

It is lame when people put things in a dead language just to make themselves look smarter or to make other people have to look them up.

But I was thinking that might be a bit to negative overall, and I wouldn't want to do it while I was in the middle of a controversy with someone who actually does that, since I wouldn't want it to come across as a personal attack.  However, I thought the irony would be funny

I'm laughing and I think it is very funny...but then again I stopped memorizing Latin when I graduated from High School.  I do still remember that you have to put the verbs at the end of the sentence.

Choose the blocker in Type 2 and pre-battle ignores still need more out-of-battle counters, but other than The Garden Tomb, they are moving in the right direction.

Considering that the latest 2 sets contained:
1 - Reuben's Torn Clothes and a new Jacob which allows for a pre-battle ignore
2 - Again the new Jacob, and a CTB mismatch (with Obedience of Noah)
3 - Zebulun which allows for a whole deck to be based on pre-block ignore and a shut out defense
4 - The Garden Tomb which allows for an entire deck to be built around pre-battle ignore and be successful to the extent of changing the meta

I'm not sure that this is actually moving in the right direction.  That is why I am trying to bring this to attention.

Hey,

There are enough ways to get rid of Fortresses that it is still a risky venture to base an entire deck around that one card.

Spreading Mildew and Romans Destroy Jerusalem are the only cards I can think of that can discard The Garden Tomb, and you're going to have to jump through hoops (read side battles) to play either of them since The Garden Tomb strategy is not letting you block with your evil characters.

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly

I'd vote for option CLOCK
Retreat all heroes, thats what the card was originally intended to do, retreive a botched RA.

Journey to Egypt kills 98% of gold defenses immediately with almost no recourse and that hasn't caused problems even as Egypt has grown in strength.

This is far more broken than any GTG deck, sitting there knowing that my only hope is cm/uw (In a deck with healing and usually a form of anti capture) or else I could deck and not be able to block is pretty OP'd. But schaef is right, it hasnt stopped me from using gold or enjoying it.

Thanks Rob for this great game. I'll keep trying to break it

There is one combo that I think has been abused for a while.

The combo starts off with Choose the Blocker where you pick your own character to block that would grant you initiative (like Red Dragon).  Then you play some cards that allow you to draw cards and discard cards from your opponent, then play a Withdraw card and keep it going... 

The playtesters and I have been kicking around a rule change.  However, there is no consensus.  Since you, the players, have a stake in this I will tell you what is in discussion and let you comment. 

Options:

1) You cannot choose your own evil character to block your rescue attempt.  In other words, if you are rescuing against me you can only force me to block with a character I could have legally chosen for myself.  This would prevent you from forcing me to block with a character like Red Dragon when I am not playing crimson.

2) When you play a "withdraw" enhancement, you cannot return enhancements to hand that match the brigade of a hero still in battle. [Withdraw enhancements were designed to salvage something from a failed battle, not perpetually play and return the same enhancements over and over].

3)  Instead of either of the above which deal with a specific ability type (withdraw or choose the blocker), we make a more general rule that in a stalemate situation if your opponent continuously passes initiative, there is a cap on how many cards you can play.  Back to the Red Dragon example, you set up a stalemate and since I don't play crimson I must keep passing initiative after you play a card.  In this situation you would be limited to how many cards you can play before battle is resolved.  The limit would be some number yet to be determined (3 cards, 5 cards, 7 cards). 

Note:  whatever we decide would likely happen soon (before state and regional events, rather than after nationals).

It seems to me from this post that Rob is sort of indecisive at the moment. What he wants is the peoples' input. If nobody wants anything changed, I would think he'd want to know.

Spreading Mildew and Romans Destroy Jerusalem are the only cards I can think of that can discard The Garden Tomb

I said FortressES... Garden Tomb is particularly problematic but many potent strategies can be made to rely too much on one or two support cards.  That was the point.

I apologize for that then. I was just trying to support Rob as best I could.

However, I cannot speak for him, so I won't. My opinion is just my own.

Combo decks have recently become and interest of mine, but in a sort of oddball way. I would definae myself as a type 1 2-p combo deck user. Yes, type 1. You can credit Lambo for that designation, as he showed me the light of them.

My combo deck is a bit different than the ones being discussed, but I think it's worth mentioning. I have not adapted it to type 2. It's still very potent though.

Currently I use 11 combo related cards in my deck: King Jehosophat, Elishama, Angel in the Path (wa), Maharai, Moses and Elders, Claudia, Ethiopian Treasurer, Gathering of Angels, Spiritual Warfare, Brass Serpent and Three Nails

In a 63 card type 1 deck, after souls (, dominants (, artifacts (5), and sites (6/7), I have about 25 defensive cards to put in the deck. If the combo is pulled off, I ignore all but 4 cards in the game pre-battle (Doubt, Madness, Serpent, and Leviathan [Self would be able to enter battle, but upon entering, would become either angel or human and subsequently be ignored]).

Is this combo broken? No. None of these combos are broken in my humble opinion. Each combo is merely a beautiful creation of a smart man's mind used to glorify God. By limiting creative combos, we are essentially limiting the player's mind in deckbuilding, which, from what I gather, we wish to avoid.

The main problem I have with the Tomb is it's impossiblity to target. We need good cards to target any fortress or something that can be played to stop fortresses without having the block (Artifact ala Captured Ark or a Dominant)

The main problem I have with the Tomb is it's impossiblity to target.

The Garden Tomb is not impossible to target. As I had mentioned earlier on another thread--my son did a quite effective job of blowing up my TGT (and hence my deck) in a tournament without even allowing me to play a card while he did it. I agree that TGT is one card that takes the most effort in deck design to counter, but forcing people to put additional thought into their decks is a good thing, IMO.

And my point was that the most powerful cards leading to Redemption Solitaire have come out in the last couple sets released.

I disagree with your assessment of what the game has produced.  What you call Redemption Solitaire is an offense or defense that is very difficult to counter once it is set up and executed, but one of your prime examples is one that my defense doesn't even flinch at.  What I call Redemption Solitaire is when a player can continue to create side battles and withdraw over and over again, creating a situation where his turn takes 45 minutes and the game times out instead of going through a normal series of turns.  In other words, I consider your examples a powerful lockout but not game-breaking, and not at all bad compared to the things we had to stifle five years ago.  The idea is to keep people from locking the game in an unbreakable loop, not to ensure them having some arbitrary requisite amount of "fun" in a given game.

Garden Tomb will be addressed in the next set.  Same with many pre-block ignores.  And the cards will be useful for more than just stopping those.  Don't worry about those.  

Going back to Rob's list of suggestions (and the variations mentioned), I really like Schaef's suggestion and Tim Maly's suggestion, which are variations of option 2.  I am not fond of playing a stack of enhancements, returning them to hand, and then playing them all again in the same battle, repeat x5 in Type 2.  I don't care whether it wins games or not.  That is not the point.  The point is that it is NOT FUN to watch an opponent take a 10-minute turn where you do nothing but watch.  The point of the game is fun and fellowship.  10-minute solitaire turns are neither fun nor fellowship.

If the enhancement cards are not returned to hand until AFTER the battle (instead of being discarded), then that fixes the problem.

Option 1 would be OK with me, too.  Again, it is based on the interactive FUN aspect of the game, not whether or not it wins games.  However, if most players think there are enough counters to this, then I'm totally fine with it satying how it is.

Has anybody thought of putting Masquerading or Defiant in their decks?

Holy of Holies wasn't enough to stop FbtN from being unbalanced.  Masquerading and Defiant simply aren't enough to keep pre-block ignore from being unbalanced.  We really need a good deal more stuff to combat pre-block ignore.  Bryon's statement is clear that we're getting some so I'm in a wait and see period.  Once the next set is released I (and everyone else) will be able to make informed assessments as to whether the pre-block ignore strategy still needs more counter balancing.

Sean